In college one of the jobs I had was working in a medical file warehouse. Talk about mundane, boring, monotonous. These were huge warehouses that contained millions of files from hospitals all over the San Francisco Bay Area. I did one of three things: I pulled a file for a patient in a hospital somewhere; I put the patient’s file back after the hospital was done with it; I threw out the file when the hospital asked for it to be purged. If you know your ABC’s, you too could do this job.
Each warehouse had rows and rows of files reaching over 20 feet high. It was a very quiet job. The many files in these warehouses super insulated the sound so that if person was more than one row away – you couldn’t hear them. If there was another person in one of these vast places, unless they were in your line of sight, you would have no idea they were even there. It was as if you were completely alone. There was absolute silence.
There were no windows, there were no skylights – just millions and millions of files. It was very difficult to keep track of time, it was very difficult to stay focused. I could be filing for six hours but think only two hours had gone by.
Most people would last about two weeks, and then they would quit, usually out of exasperation and many would just leave during the day and never come back. They would just lose it.
I guess they would just get to a point and see how meaningless the job was. It didn’t matter how fast one could file, there were always more files. After putting away ten boxes of files the shelves looked exactly the same as when one started. One could work at a feverish pace and it hardly made much of a difference.
If I take this file out, it is only coming back. If I put this file away, it is only coming out again. At the end of the day, it was meaningless.
Our Scripture from Ecclesiastes sums up that job at the medical file warehouse: Eccl. 1:9 “What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again;”
Here we are at the end of a year, starting another year, and we could ask – what’s the point? We achieve this, we pay off that, we manage these perfectly, we realize what we have hoped for – but in the end, does it matter? Further, in this life we can lose what we have fought for, lose what we have worked for, lose what we have loved, and during those times life can look meaningless.
The British Humanist Association has caused a ruckus in England by running a campaign this Christmas on London buses with the message: "There’s probably no God. Now stop worrying and enjoy your life."
Isn’t that a form of Nihilism? The rejection of religious morality and the belief that life is meaningless.
Enjoy my life! To what end?
When I was a college kid in the San Francisco Bay Area I would drive down with my friends to Disneyland at least once a year. We would leave late Friday night and take turns driving and sleeping during the eight hour drive. We would arrive in town early, have breakfast at Denny’s and be at the gate at 8:00 A.M. just as Disneyland opened.
We would be so excited and once we were through the gate we would run to our favorite ride, maybe ‘Space Mountain’ or ‘Pirates of the Caribbean’, but we ran like our lives depended on it. Then, we ran from ride to ride until the late night closing, spent the night in a cheap motel, and then we would be at the gates Sunday morning just as Disneyland opened once again. (Yes, we would skip church that day) Again we would run to our favorite ride first and then run from ride to ride all day…..and then about 4:00 P.M. it would kick in, Eccl. 1:9 “What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again”.
The Pirates or the Caribbean weren’t pirates anymore, they were animatronics mannequins; ‘The Swiss Family Robinson Tree House’ wasn’t a fantastic tree fort, it was just a cement tree; ‘Space Mountain’ wasn’t a scary rocket ship anymore for we saw the tracks the cars ran on and it was just a rollercoaster in the dark; Oh, and ‘It’s A Small World’ – we couldn’t go near that relentless song, it became merciless upon our ears….What was so exciting just a few hours before had become dull; What initially had given us great joy now lacked any meaning.
We see the meaning in our lives slipping away at times, even things we look forward to can become meaningless. Here in our Scripture this morning we are told everything we do is ultimately, meaningless. It is very Nihilistic in thought isn’t it? Now, I’ve said this many times before, the bible is a very practical book. So what we have here in this Scripture is not impractical thought. Most certainly we have here is very helpful and very practical. For you know - Nihilism is not practical.
What is this Scripture attempting to tell us this morning? Are we to take from this passage that everything we do means nothing? This is not about life being meaningless, this is about where we find meaning in life. These words are telling us to look past things that are temporary and to look toward things that are eternal. Right now, at this time of year we look at our past year and consider our year; Then we look to our next year and hope and plan for the best.
This past year have we invested in things that are temporary or have we invested in things that are eternal; This coming year, will we invest in the temporary once again or will we invest in the eternal?
I tell you the truth – I have sat at many a bedside in conversation with a man or a woman who has fully seen the reality in their lives, that they have just hours to live. In these deathbed conversations, I have heard many regrets. It seems that people mostly regret not being generous to others. They wish they could go back in time and give that thing that they once held back. They wish they had not been such fools. They wish they knew then what they now know in their last moments. I suppose they see they are going to lose it all in a matter of hours anyway, and the fog clears from their eyes and they see for the first time what really has meaning in life.
Here in Ecclesiastes Chapter 1:1-14, we see the word meaningless used over and over. The word used in the Hebrew is the word ‘havel’ which literally means a breath, a breeze or a vapor. So our word ‘meaningless’ is expressed in the Hebrew, as without substance. It does not mean temporary in nature, for it is usually attributed elsewhere in Scripture to things like idols, not to transitory things – it is not saying this is meaningless, but something else will come along, is it telling us there is no substance here. The Septuagint expresses this meaningless as an, ‘empty frustration’, that’s very helpful. Some of our bibles may have the word ‘vanity’ which comes from the Latin vulgate, ‘Vanitas’ and honestly does not express the image of deep emptiness that the Hebrew is trying to create for us.
Probably the only people who can truly understand the depth of the lack of meaning expressed here are those who have lost a spouse and after the funeral have walked into an empty bedroom – and spent the night alone….or perhaps the parent who has lost a child. This is an absolute lack of hope, surrounded by a great hollowness.
Notice, everything is involved, nothing is left out.
Our work is ultimately meaningless. (verse 3) All those files I took off the shelf and replaced back on the shelf, they would eventually be shredded. In the end, it didn’t matter how neat the files were, how quickly the files were placed, or how accurately the files were set, in the end they would all go out of existence.
In our Scripture we see that people come, people go (4), the seasons and nature relentlessly cycle (5-7), nothing is really new (9-10) and eventually all of us in this room will be forgotten, just names without people to attach the names (11).
These are happy thoughts aren’t they?
I had a professor at Princeton Theological Seminary who had an ongoing feud with a professor at another institution. My professor would argue that the universe is well thought out and therefore life is not random and so life has great meaning. His nemesis would argue the opposite, that the universe is random, therefore everything is random, and so life has no meaning. This debate went on endlessly for many years until that fateful day on the campus of Oxford.
My professor was driving a rented car through campus of Oxford and to his surprise he saw his nemesis on the other side of the street walking right toward him on the sidewalk. My professor saw the opportunity and drove into opposing traffic, up on the sidewalk and drove his car right at the other professor, who dropped everything and dove off the sidewalk. As my professor drove by his foe laughing he shouted, “I suppose ‘that’ was just a random event”.
(See, since the professor jumped out of the way, his avoidance was intentional and not random, therefore everything is not random, therefore he was wrong)
Just a few moments ago I said that here in the Scripture we see that all is meaningless, and that the for the author everything is involved, nothing is left out – but, you know, I was wrong. As we read further into this book we see that only things of creation are without meaning, see, we must transcend the created order to find meaning. To find meaning in life we must look beyond this what we know in this world.
If I look for meaning in things here on earth, then meaning in my life will literally be at a dead end. But it doesn’t end here, and so the meaning of life does not end here either. As many of you know, it was about one year ago that my father died. I can look at my father’s life in a couple of ways: First, I can say that John Donald was born on this day and John Donald died on that day, but that wouldn’t be accurate. The truth is John Donald started his life in 1929, period.
You and I, we are eternal beings, we need to live like who we are. You and I, we are chosen from before time, not by random lottery, but by the hand of God himself. Ephesians 1:4-5a, tells us, “For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. In love he predestined us to be adopted as his sons through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will”. Our life does not end here, our life only starts here.
If you and I are hand picked, if you and I are eternal beings, then everything that has no meaning, only has no meaning without God. For since we will live forever, then everything, somehow has eternal consequences, and therefore, everything matters. See, everything has meaning with God.
I know of a retired pastor who is doing everything he can to leave his mark in ministry here on earth before he dies. He has self published books that he sends to publishers nationwide, he chronicles everything about his life, he attempts to have his name on every roll that he can, this man wants to be remembered here on earth.
But his memory on earth will only be temporary, shouldn’t he be spending time on things of lasting value? Our time here on earth shouldn’t be about building a temporary legacy, our time here on earth should be about building an eternal legacy. Our time here on earth is just a short prelude to our time in the presence of God.
What can we do to build things of eternal value?
Well, first of all, if you are still here, then God has more for you to potentially do, but I think there are at least four things we can keep in mind as we start this year off that have eternal consequences:
First, get to know God. If we are going to be with God for eternity, wouldn’t it be a good thing to get a heads up on who He is – I think so. The place to start is obvious is it not, start talking more with God. The more you talk to Him, there more likely He is to answer.
Second, become more Christ like. The person of Jesus Christ shapes us to who we are supposed to be, He is trying to form our character – your still here, you need work on your character.
Third practice being a servant. Jesus came to serve us and as an example for us to follow his servant hood. What this means in practical terms is to practice place myself last.
Fourth, share the reality of the gospel with others. Life is not without meaning, if it is a life connected to Jesus Christ. People are genuinely searching for peace and deeper meaning in life, and the fact is, Jesus will give what is needed, for Jesus takes a life that is but a vapor, a breath, a breeze and he makes it eternally valuable and meaningful.
Myself, I loved that filing job. There I found peace and quiet. There was a place where I could finally clear my mind and think, pray or memorize study notes for college while I worked. For me it was a wonderful place of peaceful solitude.
I knew that every file folder wasn’t just a medical file, every file I placed on those shelves, every file I took off those shelves represented a life – a mother, a brother, a sister, a father, every file was not something random, no, it was loved, it was cared for, it represented a very real person. Most of the time I read the names and placed those folders on the shelf without a second thought, filing as fast as I could. Though, there were times I was moved to pray for the person who belonged to a particular file – perhaps that was the only prayer said for them….
The hardest part of the job came as a surprise to me. One Saturday afternoon I was directed to a far corner of warehouse number three. I was to remove about one hundred boxes of files out for shredding. No one else was willing to move these boxes, these were the dreaded, “boxes of death”. They were huge oversized boxes full of files of people who had died in the various hospitals around the San Francisco Bay Area.
I tell you, I was taken back. I stood in front of literally hundreds and hundreds of files. Those boxes represented the loss of hundreds of lives, it was a bit overwhelming. I just sat down and stared at the huge stack of files for quite some time. I guess I knew that chances were that someday a file with my name would be stamped expired, stuffed into a box and hauled off to a dark corner until some kid threw out the last record of my life without a second thought. I never expected moving boxes to be a solemn experience.
Finally, after some time, I don’t know how long, my boss Roger came back and said, “Peter, let’s move these boxes together”. As we moved those boxes of files I realized how God had made sure the warehouse would be completely silent for a time such as this.
(And yes, ’Nihilism Is Not Practical’, is an album by Showbread.
